The first step in staying calm during a test is coming into it properly prepared. Make sure that you get a full night's rest. it has been shown that anything under 6 hours of sleep the night before a test radically reduces your performance, even on tasks you perform regularly, for up to 5 days.

Make sure you have a full stomach in the morning. It is also important to have a good meal before a test so that you are not distracted by being hungry. Just as your car needs fuel to run so does your body so make sure you eat at least something in the morning so that you can stay focused on the task at hand.

Along with physical preparation you should also make sure that you have studied adequatley for the test. Some strategies in preparation are, reviewing your notes with a friend for 10 minutes or more after each class. This allows you to remember extra stuff and write down or ask questions of your friend. This also inputs the information through you head again. If questions come up that you and your friend can't answer go ask the teacher. This ensures that when the test is coming you have all of your questions answered.

One of the first things to do is to read through the whole test. I often found that I would put in quick points under questions that way I remembered them later. If your test has both multiple choice and written portions use the multiple choice as a primer for the written section. I often took notes throughout the multiple choice on topics that I used later on the written chunk. Remember these notes are a primer not long study notes so keep is brief just to remind yourself.

You should also remember to take a watch in with you and keep track of your time. If you find that you are running out of time and have a long question left worth most of the exam skip to it and write it. For some test I will write those sections first so that the hard stuff is out of the way and I can relax. Don't get caughty up in one question to the exclusion of others. If you put all of your time into one question worth lots but don't get to a number of other questions worth a bit each you may not be any farther ahead.

Above all remember that one test does not make you a failure. I regularly fail certain types of test and maintain a 3.7 GPA. I go in knowing that they are not my strong point and put extra effort into assignments to make up for it.

One test is not the end of the world.